Flying Monkeys
by Crouching SunRose
Summary: Nathan Stark is too stubborn to leave G.D. when it's taken over by flying menaces. Jo and Carter have to rescue him. Carter is not happy about it.


"Don't hurt them, the little dears."

Taggart was a raving lunatic if he thought for a second that Carter was going to spare the monsters taking over Global Dynamics. Especially not after being woken up at two o'clock in the freaking morning for… especially after hearing the reports from the few GD employees still at work when the creatures escaped Taggart's lab.

And even though Jo was on better-than-speaking-terms with Taggart (whatever that meant - he didn't want to know, actually), he doubted that she'd miss out on a chance to use the biggest gun they had in the arsenal. It wasn't even in the regular armoury, she'd made a special trip to who knows where to get it - and he'd NEVER seen her look so excited to wield one of her toys.

"Here, Carter, Josephina, I've got some tranq guns you can use."

"Shut up, Taggart!"

Apparently Jo wasn't in the best of moods either. Even though the high powered dart guns Taggart offered them looked like the sort of weapon Jo would be embracing, she didn't even look at them, choosing instead to follow Carter to the front door.

It was even worse than the reports. Flying monkeys, swooping around the lobby of GD. Which wouldn't have been so bad, except that through the door Carter saw a burst of flames coming from one of the monkeys, aimed at the glass of the Director's Office.

"All right, let's get in there."

Of COURSE Nathan Stark would ignore an evacuation order in favor of - what? In favor of hiding out in his office? Reading schematics from his desk that he could easily have read from some device that Henry must have built by now. Which wouldn't be so bad - except it meant that Carter was hiding behind a desk trying not to get blasted by a flying monkey that shot fire, while Jo was playing with the biggest gun he'd ever seen her use, managing to draw the fire of… most of them. For that matter, what was Taggart THINKING, making flying monkeys that breathed fire. Dragon monkeys. Seriously?

But Taggart's irresponsibility didn't change the fact that if it weren't for Stark's stubbornness about mandatory evacuations, Carter would still be in bed, sleeping, instead of on this insane and unnecessary rescue mission.

A blast of fire hit the glass desk surface just above him. Molten glass began to drip, landing close enough to singe the pant leg nearest to it.

"Oh, SARAH's going to kill me!"

Carter backed out of the circular desk before it caught fire around him, relieved that the monkey hadn't actually been aiming anywhere at all. Yeah, right. That'd be a comfort for Zoe, wouldn't it? The creature didn't MEAN to… well, never mind. As quietly and quickly as he could, Carter managed to make it as far as the next desk before hiding again. Damn it, Stark, why?

Nathan Stark looked down from his office window - Taggart had outdone himself this time. Actually, he'd outdone a lot of the scientists Stark was technically responsible for. Not Fargo, of course. Nobody outdid Fargo for making trouble with science. Though at least this time the damage looked like it would be confined to G.D. - for once the town wasn't in danger. This mess was on him, though, and he really needed to find a way to fix it.

Carter and Lupo had come into the lobby a few minutes ago, and separated. Lupo hadn't even tried to hide - she had an enormous energy gun - or was it a flame-thrower? - and she fired on one of the monkeys, which froze in midair. Energy crackled around the creature until, more suddenly than anyone could be prepared for, a bolt of energy flew from the monkey in the direction of its attacker.

That wasn't in Taggart's (admittedly preliminary) reports on the project. He must not have discovered it yet - the DoD would definitely be interested in whatever it was that gave these creatures the ability to redirect enemy fire back at the enemy. He turned back to his desk - he'd need to make a note of that. Just in case.

He turned back to his desk, opening the holographic building diagram he'd closed when he'd heard the first blast of Jo's energy weapon and looked out to see her battling it out with the hybrid creatures. He heard another burst of the weapon, and another and another. Good, she'd obviously dodged the discharge and was now baiting the other monkeys. Why, he didn't know. Probably a distraction of some kind - but HE couldn't afford to get distracted, not if… well.

He pulled open a building schematic marked with small glowing lights. Each light represented a living heat source that internal sensors were tracking. Every level, every lab that wasn't locked, every common area, every room had at least one of the creatures. It really wasn't possible - were they breeding? They couldn't be - yet Taggart had only created a dozen of the things, not hundreds.

Switching windows on the desktop, Stark dragged the touch-screen keyboard to easy reach, pulled out a document, and began to type his notes into the ||| document. Then there was a knock at the door.

"Little busy here," he grumbled, but the knocking didn't stop.

"Stark, open the door!"

"Carter?"

He'd seen Jo, playing with her weapons and keeping the monkey's busy. He should have realized she was covering for Carter. Although now that he actually thought about it made a lot more sense that she was the distraction than whatever he'd assumed she was doing did.

He opened the door, and Carter ducked in and quickly pulled it to.

It was all he could do not to react to Carter's appearance. The man looked like shit, to be honest. Blisters bubbled up on his face - one or two had already popped and showed the raw dermis underneath the uppers layers of skin. His uniform had several holes in it - holes with blackened edges.

"I'm fine"

His concern must have shown after all. To cover, he snapped back.

"What are you doing here?"

"Getting you out, let's go."

Stark groaned.

"Look, if I needed a rescue, I'd have called for one. I'm working on solving the problem."

Nope. Carter wasn't buying it.

"Don't make me knock you out and drag your sorry ass out of here."

"This office is the safest place in town - it's hardened against anything you could possibly throw at it."

"Sure it is."

Carter just looked over at the glass, and Stark followed his gaze. Oh shit - there were cracks in the glass - but that wasn't the most concerning bit. Instead it was the burst of flame shooting up AGAINST the glass, right where the cracks were.

"They're hitting the same place more than once. We've got to go."

Carter grabbed Stark by the arm and began tugging him towards the door. Stark tried to shake him off but Carter only held tighter.

"Carter…"

"Look, Jo can only hold them off for so long with her tazery, ray gun thingee. You're the last one in the building - I'm not even going to go into why you'd be here at 2:00 in the morning instead of in bed like normal people, or at least evaculted like every one else. - but we've got the solution. The only problem is, it's not going to be good for anyone in the building - you can't be here when we let them off, so the sooner you let me get you out, the sooner we can take out these things for good."

"Aw Carter, I didn't know you cared."

"Trust me, I don't. But for some insane reason, Alli does, soSo let's move."

As another spray of fire hit the now-badly cracked window, Stark reluctantly had to conceded that Carter had a point. And any room, no matter how well-hardened, that was under attack by flame-throwing monkeys probably wasn't as safe as any ordinary, unhardened room that wasn't.

Grumbling, he followed Carter to the door - but he glanced back one more time at the hologram - he was so close to an answer. Yeah, it seemed like Carter was saying that they had a solution already, but HE wanted to be the one to figure out how to retain the assets while neutralizing the damage they could do.

And then the window blew in - glass flying everywhere, and one of the monkeys somersaulted into the room.

"I said let's move!"

Carter got behind Stark and actually physically shoved him into the hallway before slamming the door behind them.

"Can you lock it?"

"Of course I could lock it - if you'd let me grab the key."

"Right, well sorry I didn't think letting you get hit by a dragon monkey was that good of an idea."

They were running down the corridor, bickering as usual. Which actually added a layer of normalcy to this insane nightmare that helped ground Stark. He had no idea if it did anything for Carter, but…

Then they reached the lobby. And any possible normalcy flew out the window.

It was like a post-apocalyptic movie - desks tossed around and destroyed (though there were a few that looked like they might offer a bit of cover), the lights were all out and the only light came from the flames the creatures were shooting all over the place, and the crackling electricity of Jo's "tazery ray gun thingee," as Carter would have put it - why was he starting to think in Carter-talk? That couldn't be right. Though he had to admit, the description did seem to fit the weapon, and…

He'd counted six of the creatures from his office - and ignoring the one that was currently tearing destroying his office, and the four that Jo was single-handedly keeping occupied with quick pulses of energy, there was one left unaccounted for.

He felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to Carter, who held up his hand in a signal that meant 'stay" - as if he were Fargo's dog instead of the Director of Research at the most important super-secret science base on the planet.

Still, he stayed.

Carter slipped into the room and disappeared from view behind one of the trashed desks. Meanwhile, Stark tried to scan the room to see where on earth the sixth monkey was - but it was too dark and too chaotic and then Carter's head reappeared around the edge of the desk and he signaled to Stark to come on.

Stark hurried across the empty space and joined Carter behind the desk. Carter peeked out, this time around the other side.

"Shit!"

"What's wrong?"

Carter pointed. It was really hard to see in the terrible light, but they'd found the sixth monkey.

It wasn't facing them, at least - but it was far too close for comfort.

Carter once again signalled Stark to just stay put - but this time he moved far more slowly and carefully. Stark found himself holding his breath, willing the creature to not turn around, willing Carter to make it safely across. He refused to let himself think about the fact that he would have to go next.

Carter was half way to the next desk (which wasn't very far from the door - once they were there, they were almost home free) when a crash of glass flew outwards from Stark's office. He groaned - this was going to be a very expensive cleanup when the whole thing was over - but the glass flew right over his head and landed just behind Carter. And the monkey turned around.

The second it saw Carter, it flew straight at him. Carter pulled out his pistol and let a bullet fly. Only it didn't actually reach the monkey. Instead, the bullet seemed to bounce off what looked like a forcefield - and went straight back the way it came.

It all happened too fast for Stark to really see what happened, but the next thing he knew, he was watching a scene worse than his worst nightmares. Fires burning in his office and throughout the lobby. Jo Lupo holding off five monkeys with a weapon that, if she weren't careful, would send her own weapon right back at her. And Jack Carter was lying half under the nearest desk - far too far away - unmoving, with dark blood pooling under his leg.

He was overcome with intense nausea - and it took everything he had just to turn around and lose his lunch behind him, instead of on himself.

Carter groaned as he lay on the floor. His eyes squeezed tight, then opened reluctantly. His leg hurt, and he could feel a warm, thick liquid under his fingertips that must be coming from his hurting leg.

All he wanted to do was lay there, but he forced himself to sit up and figure out what was going on. At the least, he had to put pressure on his wound. At least the blood was dark, he wasn't likely to bleed out in the next few seconds it took to do something about the bleeding like he would if it were the bright red of arterial blood.

He took off his uniform shirt - at least with all the fires around the room, the usual air conditioned child wasn't likely to bother him. Quickly he wadded the thing into a ball and pressed it to the wound at the back of his leg. Then he looked around for something to hold the dressing in place so his hands were free to get him moving. He'd probably have to crawl, undignified as it would be to do that in front of Stark.

Stark. Where was he? Had he been hit too? He leaned further forward to see if he could actually see around the desk. And yep, the bane of his existence, the reason he was in this mess in the first place, was leaning up against the edge of the ruined desk they'd both been sheltering behind a few minutes ago. And he was puking his guts out on the floor in front of him. Great. Now Nathan Stark was falling apart. The world must be ending.

"Stark!"

Stark looked up at him - was it his imagination or did he look relieved?

"Come on!"

Stark didn't move. Instead he bent over and retched again.

"Damn it, Stark, you're the reason I'm in this mess in the first place - I need you to get your butt over here and help me get out of it."

Stark looked up again. He started to move, started to crawl forwards - and wasn't that something he'd never expected to see. At least if he had to crawl he wouldn't be the only one.

One of the monkeys screeched, and for second Carter was sure it was going to come and attack their position again. If he couldn't use his weapon he wasn't sure what was going to happen.

And Stark was back behind that desk again. He wanted to yell at the man, wanted to berate him for ruining his night, wanted to… but he couldn't. He'd never seen Stark so terrified, and it actually almost hurt. Yelling would only make it worse. So he needed to do the one thing that might relieve the pressure and give Stark the courage to make it out.

Letting some of his own fear into his voice, he called across the room.

"Nathan"

The voice was faint, drowned out by what felt like a thousand crashes and screams, but he could hear it.

"I need your help. Please, don't let me down."

Carter looked… vulnerable. His brown undershirt, the way he hunched forward, drawing what must be his injured leg up towards his chest with his hands, stopping the bleeding with his own uniform shirt.

Crossing those few dozen feet of floor was the hardest thing he'd ever done. Harder than going to college at 14, harder than leaving Eureka the first time - harder even than accepting that his marriage was really over, accepting that Alli only wanted friendship. At least it hadn't taken long for Carter to be shot down too, that had made it a little easier. But the only thing keeping him from completely shutting down and ending his life hiding from homicidal simians was the realization that if he did, then Sheriff Jack Carter - who he reluctantly admitted to himself was no longer just a rival, but actually a friend - would die the same way. If he didn't bleed out first.

Finally, he was at Carter's desk.

"Took you long enough. Here."

Carter let go of his leg long enough to grab one of Stark's hands and drag it back down to the balled up uniform shirt pressed up against the bullet-hole.

"Hold pressure on that while I rig up a bandage to hold this in place."

Hesitantly, not sure if it was actually what Carter needed, Stark brought his other hand down as well.

"No, not like that. Pressure. Don't be afraid of hurting me, it's gonna be a lot worse if I bleed out."

Stark pressed in as hard as he could. Carter winced, then gave him a pained smile.

"I need your tie."

"That's a three hundred dollar tie!"

His protest put a small smile on Carter's face. Not like the tie mattered now.

"I'll get you a new one."

"You know what, just take it. It's gotta be ruined now anyway."

Blood-covered hands reached up, took hold of Nathan's tie. Untied it and slid it out from under his collar.

Stark could only watch as Carter wrapped the tie underneath his leg, over the shirt, and Stark's hands holding it in place. He pulled it tight - it actually hurt a bit.

"Hey Nathan, you can move your hands now."

Oh, right. He let go, pulled his hands out from underneath his friend. They were covered in blood too. Dark red, almost black in this light.

"How close are we to the door?" Carter startled Stark out of his spaced out state. He looked out from behind the desk.

"About a dozen yards. Can you make it that far?"

"I'm gonna have to - but I'll need your help."

"Anything."

"Anything?" teased Carter.

"What do you need, Carter?"

"Help me up."

Checking the room (yes, all five of the monkeys still in the lobby were still going after Jo, who was holding them off with no trouble at all), Stark stood up, then bent over and wrapped his arms underneath Carter's to help him up. Once they were fully upright, Stark moved so he was supporting Carter on his injured side.

Another day popped into his head - another time that he had supported a nearly collapsing Carter after Carl Carlson, idiot that he was, almost got the sheriff killed with a blast of energy to the chest. They'd sort of stumbled then, they were stumbling now, until they reached the door.

As they reached the door, Carter turned and yelled out "Jo!" Lupo turned to see where they were, and she grinned and turned back to the monkeys. Stark got carter out the door and as far as Carter's Jeep. With Stark's help, Carter leaned up against it.

"Taggart. Where's Taggart?"

The weakness in Carter's voice wasn't exactly encouraging. Especially since Taggart was nowhere to be seen.

"He's not here."

"Of course not."

Suddenly, Carter's leg gave out and he crumpled to the ground. Cursing that he'd thought the Jeep was all Carter needed, Stark raced to his side and knelt.

"Carter?"

His eyes were closed, and though he was breathing he did not look good. And there was no response.

"Carter, wake up."

Still no response. Stark put a hand on his shoulder and began to shake the man.

"Come on, Carter. You can't do this to me."

Carter opened his eyes and gave Stark a small smirk.

"What, you think it's all about you?"

Stark couldn't help grin at Carter's teasing. The day that Nathan Stark or Jack Carter didn't rise to the bait in a good snark would be a very worrying day.

Carter shook his head.

"Leave it to you, Stark. Good thing we're outside. I'd hate to see what that ego of your could do to the building, in the condition it's in."

Faintly, they could hear the sounds of sirens coming nearer. Carter let his eyes close, and his head rolled to one side. He was breathing, but only faintly.

"Carter?"

Stark shook him lightly again.

"CARTER!"

Still no response. Suddenly, Stark realized just how much he DIDN'T want to experience a world without Jack Carter in it. A second later, he realized he couldn't see the rise and fall of Carter's chest.

"Carter!" He grabbed Carter by the shoulders and shook the almost violently. "You can't die - not now."

Carter's eyes were open. Once more he smirked up at the bane of his existence.

"I'm not going to die, you idiot"

Stark laughed with relief.

"I am, however, about to pass out. If that's all right with you."

Before Stark could even give him an answer ("of course it's not all right with me - you need to stay with me…), pass out is exactly what Carter did.

At that moment, an ambulance pulled up behind the Jeep. Within half a minute, they had a stretcher collapsed next to Carter, and less than two minutes after that they were taking him away, taking him to the ambulance.

At that moment, with a final buzz of her tazery, ray gun thingee, Jo Lupo backed out of the front door of G.D.

She took out her radio, brought it to her face, and

"Everybody's out. Do it."

A faint explosion could be heard inside. One of the monkeys thumped into the glass, and Stark suddenly worried about them invading Eureka, instead of just Global Dynamics. But the monkey was collapsed against the glass. Apparently whatever Henry and Taggart and whoever else was working on the problem from the outside had solved it. There had been no need for him to stay in his office at all.

He leaned back against the side of the Jeep, watching as one of the paramedics exited the back of the ambulance. Watched as she got in the front, and drove away.

And Nathan Stark sat up against the side of Carter's Jeep, staring unseeing into the distance. This time, it had been Jack that had paid for his ego. Jack had paid, and Nathan didn't like it.

He didn't like it at all.


End file.
